“Really—how sentimental! He is quite romantic for a clodpole,” was again drawled out in response.
The hands of both the ladies were now claimed for quadrilles, and the conversation was interrupted. In the mean time the object of their remarks was leaning against the folding-door of the apartment, and contemplating with an abstracted air, the gay group around him. And yet Henry Stanton was not of a disposition to allow pleasure to fleet away without claiming his allotted share. But now thought was burning within him, and he felt that a decisive moment had arrived in his destiny. He loved Amy Laverty deeply and purely. Unaccustomed to the frivolities of the world of fashion, and judging only from his own ardent impulses, he fancied that he had discovered an answering chord in Amy’s heart which vibrated to the tone of his own. He knew not the difference between the conventional politeness of the ball-room, and those purer feelings which can be nurtured only by the fire-side. Stanton was skilled in the lore of books, but not in the inexplicable mysteries of the human heart. Being, however, of a decided disposition, and having resolved to woo, he determined without delay to make a more explicit declaration of his attachment to Amy.
He accordingly embraced the first opportunity which transpired, during the evening, to draw the fair girl into a favorable train of conversation, and reiterated his love in that style of mingled deference and fervor, which always gushes to the lips from the promptings of a manly heart. Amy listened in silence, and as he ceased, her clear, silvery laugh rang in his startled ear, as she exclaimed:—
“Really, Mr. Stanton, the repetition of this honor is so unexpected, that I am at a loss how to reply, or how to thank you. What jointure, besides a green-vegetable stall in High Street Market, to retail your papa’s cabbages, and your mamma’s cream-cheeses, am I to expect with your hand and heart?”
Stanton, for a moment, felt a death-like chill curdle his blood; but reassuring himself, he replied calmly, and with the impressiveness of deep feeling: “I could bring you nothing, Miss Laverty, but an honest name; talents, which friends are partial enough to say I possess, and the ardent aspirations, which are the heritage of young manhood’s resolution to win its way to honorable distinction in a profession, which has been adorned by the proudest names in the world’s annals.”
“Well, sir,” said the proud beauty, with a toss of the head, “you offer lavishly of your abundance! In works of charity, I grant you, fair sir, your mite would be recorded with the millionaire’s ostentatious subscription, but Amy Laverty’s heart is not a ‘poor-box,’ to receive with equal gratitude either which may be offered. No, I prefer equipage, and an establishment which shall be the envy of all, in actual possession, to your slow accumulation of legal fees in abeyance—and so, Mr. Attorney, you are answered à la Blackstone! But don’t despond, Mr. Stanton, nor revolve over any of the dozen schemes of suicide which the alternate flush and pallor of your cheeks tell me you are meditating. I can be a generous friend, if not your devoted affianced, and my waist is yours for the next waltz, although I see one approaching to ask the favor, who thinks his money can buy a claim to it, as his father did military bounty-lands during the last war.”
They joined the whirl of dancers. Amy waltzed like a sylph. It does not require heart to waltz well. Stanton admired her graceful postures, and twined with her the mazes of the voluptuous dance; but the spell of the enchantress was broken—he was heart-whole and free. He could, as a young and ardent lover, have forgiven any personal slight; but the cold sneer upon the quiet and unostentatious occupation of his parents, wounded him to the quick. When they separated for the night he had taken his first lesson—read the first leaf in the mysterious volume of woman’s heart, and he gleaned wisdom from its perusal. The midnight lamps may assist lovers as well as law-students in the prosecution of their respective occult sciences. The chandelier irradiates the volume of human nature, as does the taper the intricacies of Coke upon Littleton.
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CHAPTER II.
Yes,—maidens, fair or brown,